Scientology: A to Xenu: An Insider's Guide to What Scientology Is All About

Former insider Chris Shelton grew up in Scientology and worked for it for 25 years. This critical analysis covers the key aspects of its beliefs, practices, and structure from the bottom to the top, including not just the confidential Xenu story but details of all of the upper-level scriptures. Chris goes into detail about what goes on inside Scientology churches, why its members get involved in the first place, and what it takes to get out should someone decide to leave.

Fair Game: The Incredible Untold Story of Scientology in Australia

From Rugby League players trying to improve their game, to Hollywood superstars and the depressed sons of media moguls, Scientology has recruited its share of famous Australians. Less known is that Australia was the first place to ban Scientology, or that Scientology spies helped expose the Chelmsford Deep Sleep Scandal. Numerous Australians have held senior posts in the organisation, only to fall foul of the top brass and lose their families as a result.

The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology Tried to Destroy Paulette Cooper

In 1971 Paulette Cooper wrote a scathing book about the Church of Scientology. Desperate to shut the book down, Scientology unleashed on her one of the most sinister personal campaigns the free world has ever known. The onslaught, which lasted years, ruined her life and drove her to the brink of suicide. The story of Paulette's terrifying ordeal is told in full for the first time in The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.

Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me

The only book to examine the origins of Scientology's current leader, Ruthless tells the revealing story of David Miscavige's childhood and his path to the head seat of the Church of Scientology, told through the eyes of his father. Ron Miscavige's personal, heartfelt story is a riveting insider's look at life within the world of Scientology.

The Church of Fear: Inside the Weird World of Scientology

Tom Cruise and John Travolta say the Church of Scientology is a force for good. Others disagree. Award-winning journalist John Sweeney investigated the Church for more than half a decade. During that time he was intimidated, spied on, and followed, and the results were spectacular: Sweeney lost his temper with the Church's spokesman on camera, and his infamous 'exploding tomato' clip was seen by millions around the world.

Scientology: Abuse at the Top

A former top insider reveals the nightmare world of violence and abuse at the highest levels of the Church of Scientology. One review states: "At home alone, a 14 year old girl takes a phone call from Scientology. This starts a quarter of a century journey of manipulation, betrayal and sexual, physical and mental abuse. This journey leads to the highest management echelon and one woman's courage to break free. A real page-turner." Mark P. Another writes: "Amy Scobee has written a book unlike any other expose of Scientology.

Jenna Miscavige Hill, niece of Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige, was raised as a Scientologist but left the controversial religion in 2005. In Beyond Belief, she shares her true story of life inside the upper ranks of the sect, details her experiences as a member Sea Org - the church's highest ministry - speaks of her "disconnection" from family outside of the organization, and tells the story of her ultimate escape.

Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology

The outspoken actress, talk show host, and reality television star offers up a no-holds-barred memoir, including an eye-opening insider account of her tumultuous and heart-wrenching 30-year-plus association with the Church of Scientology.

God Is Disappointed in You

God Is Disappointed in You is for people who would like to read the Bible...if it would just cut to the chase. Stripped of its arcane language and interminable passages, every book of the Bible is condensed down to its core message, in no more than a few pages each. Written by Mark Russell with cartoons by New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, God Is Disappointed in You is a frequently hilarious, often shocking, but always accurate retelling of the Bible, including the parts selectively left out by Sunday School teachers.

Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion

Scientology, created in 1954 by a prolific sci-fi writer named L. Ron Hubbard, claims to be the world's fastest-growing religion, with millions of members around the world and huge financial holdings. Its celebrity believers keep its profile high, and its teams of "volunteer ministers" offer aid at disaster sites such as Haiti and the World Trade Center. But Scientology is also a notably closed faith, harassing journalists and others through litigation and intimidation, even infiltrating the highest levels of government to further its goals.

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief

A clear-sighted revelation, a deep penetration into the world of Scientology by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the The Looming Tower, the now-classic study of al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. Based on more than 200 personal interviews with both current and former Scientologists - both famous and less well known - and years of archival research, Lawrence Wright uses his extraordinary investigative ability to uncover for us the inner workings of the Church of Scientology.

Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health

Containing discoveries heralded as greater than the wheel or fire, Dianetics has remained a best seller for more than 50 years. And with over 20 million copies in print, it's indisputably the most widely read and influential book ever written about the human mind. Dianetics enables you to discover and eradicate these harmful experiences so they never affect you again, revealing the one person you've always wanted to know: You.

Publisher's Summary

Scientology is one of the wealthiest and most powerful new religions to emerge in the past century. To its detractors, L. Ron Hubbard's space-age mysticism is a moneymaking scam and sinister brainwashing cult. But to its adherents, it is humanity's brightest hope. Few religious movements have been subject to public scrutiny like Scientology, yet much of what is written about the church is sensationalist and inaccurate.

Here for the first time is the story of Scientology's protracted and turbulent journey to recognition as a religion in the postwar American landscape. Hugh Urban tells the real story of Scientology from its cold-war-era beginnings in the 1950s to its prominence today as the religion of Hollywood's celebrity elite. Urban paints a vivid portrait of Hubbard, the enigmatic founder who once commanded his own private fleet and an intelligence apparatus rivaling that of the U.S. government. One FBI agent described him as "a mental case", but to his followers he is the man who "solved the riddle of the human mind". Urban details Scientology's decades-long war with the IRS, which ended with the church winning tax-exempt status as a religion; the rancorous cult wars of the 1970s and 1980s; as well as the latest challenges confronting Scientology, from attacks by the Internet group Anonymous to the church's efforts to suppress the online dissemination of its esoteric teachings.

This book demonstrates how Scientology has reflected the broader anxieties and obsessions of postwar America, and raises profound questions about how religion is defined and who gets to define it.

What the Critics Say

"The most scholarly treatment of the organization to date." (Scientific American)

"A fascinating and oftentimes mind-bending account of how penny-a-word sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard doggedly pursued the 'religion angle' in his quest to create the worldwide Church of Scientology. Urban makes it clear from the outset that he could have written a lot more about Scientology than he has here--perhaps even a few volumes more. Settling on a narrower scope, however, hasn't precluded the author from presenting a thoroughly absorbing chronicle of Scientology's 60-year history in America.... An intriguing introduction into the labyrinthine world of Scientology and its meaning in American society." (Kirkus Reviews)

"Urban addresses his subject as a historian of religion and objectively traces the complex history of a movement that is now recognized as a religion in the U.S.... With his fair, scholarly approach, Urban has written what is probably the best history available of this terribly tangled story." (Choice)

Perhaps. But there is so much out there on the subject, that I might want to listen to some other things first.

What other book might you compare The Church of Scientology to and why?

"Inside Scientology" - Janet Reitman. They both seem to be a basic history of the "religion".

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

As usual, the cringe-worthiness of Scientology is unparalleled. But in general, I ways feel sad for the rank-and-file mindless robots that do all the work (and yet sometimes still end up tortured for thinking on their own), and disgust for the leadership that reap all the rewards (re: money).

Any additional comments?

Excellent book on Scientology. It doesn't belabor Hubbard's early years like some of the other texts out there, but gives you just enough background to understand the "church" today. It's very comprehensive. This book, as any good research book should be, is told in a matter-of-fact way.

All in all there are some good sections of this book, but this is one of rare times I would recommend getting the book in text form and not in audio form. My first reason for this is the narrator, while Contessa Brewer voice is understandable, I find her voice annoying and not up to the standard of other narrators of non-fiction works such as Walter Dixon and Sandy Rustin. When Contessa changes her voice when quoting other people like Hubbard, her voice become even more annoying and comical. Reading will allow skimming of parts of the book uninteresting to the reader.

The large majority of this book is about "what is a religion in the 21st century" and "Scientology's complex journey to becoming a religion".

I did find Mr Urban's catalog of the early history of Hubbard and his various organisations interesting and informative and also the sections on the tactics used by the origination such as "Fair Game" to stop or attempt to stop critics and the leak of "Religious Information" interesting. The battle with the IRS for religious status was also interesting but was presented in a very verbose fashion overly long fashion in my opinion.

As the Author himself admitted a lot of information of the organisation has been left out for legal and other reasons, after listening to the compelling book "Beyond Belief" I was particularly interested in the organisation after Hubbard died and the takeover by David Miscavige, but there is little about this here.

I can't help feeling that this book has just been bulked up to reach a certain size for whatever reason. The first chapters are full of "In the later chapters I will show" statements and little else. In the later chapters some information is endlessly repeated. Its written almost like a text book.

I learnt very little listening to this book. It is unnecessarily long, self-consciously academic in style, very repetitive, and despite containing many promises of "astonishing" and "stunning" descriptions of scientology's activities in the hour-long introduction, it never actually delivers any stories about what it is that happens among scientologists which makes the cult so infamous.

The author clearly says that there are many things he cannot say because of a fear of legal action from scientology, and in the end the listener comes away none the wiser about what the problem really is with this group. For example, it is said that ex-scientologists have been bullied or harassed or threatened, but no concrete examples are given of such incidents.

As for the nature of the "religion" itself, it's such goobledygook that there is nothing to understand. One thing the author does not discuss at all is why anyone in their right mind would ever be attracted to it. It seems to me there is room for a discussion about why this kind of organisation appeals to people, but nothing is said about that.

Finally, the author's approach is politically correct in the extreme, maybe not for an American but certainly for a European. That is to say, he places scientogoly on the same plane as any other religion. He says all religions should be regarded in the same light, with both respect and suspicion, regardless of what they preach or of their methods. He even says government agencies should be treated in the same way. In other words, the IRS and the FBI should be regarded with the same amount of respect and suspicion as scientology!

Ultimatately, a two- or three-hour book, or even a Wikipedia page, would give you just as much information as this book does. Don't bother with it.

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